on phoning it in.

You know those reunions that don’t feel like reunions at all? It’s that click, that spark and no time has passed. Maybe it’s been five weeks or five years and conversation picks up where it left off . . . the hugs are warm, the conversation is real and don’t call it a comeback, we’ve been here for years. Right?

En route to a client meeting on Tuesday, I tuned in to my beloved NPR. The show was Here and Now, and the guest was comedian Paul Reiser – that’s right, the Paul Reiser of Mad About You. He recently released a Kindle “single,” called How to Get to Carnegie Hall, in which he shares what he learned from the greats of Hollywood.

There’s a lie going around, friends, that the better we get at what we do, the easier doing that thing gets. Practice makes perfect, you’ll get the hang of it, like riding a bike . . . many ways to say it, same sentiment. Work now, slide later.

On Mad About You, Reiser says, it was a gift to work alongside prominent stars. He lists a number of them. Here’s where my ears perked up:

“These are people that certainly had earned the right to walk through anything or phone it in,” he says, “and they never ever did. They worked diligently, way past what you would expect.”

Earned the right to phone it in — and they never did.

“It was a very inspiring thing to witness,” Reiser says, “and it made sense. THESE PEOPLE BECAME GREAT NOT BY ACCIDENT.”

I was instantly convicted. The greats are great for a reason. And in a craft like writing, there’s always growth to be had. We can always, always, always get better.

Cheering you on en route to greatness, and not by accident,
Sarah

PS – Want to listen to all of it? Here it is. I recommend all eight minutes and 59 seconds.

And friends . . . I’ll call you to it, and you call me to it, okay? Let’s phone nothing in. Not the big stuff, not the small stuff, nothing.